Only a clod
Roderick, it seems to me as if I had lived twenty years or so since my
return from Van Diemen’s Land? and now that the luck turns, and the
winning colour comes up for the first time, I feel as if I had almost
outlived the power to care much about it. Roderick!” cried the invalid,
with a sharp suddenness that startled his brother, “did Folson tell you
there was any serious damage done to my head by that ugly fall the other
night? I know he has talked to you about me. I heard you and him
muttering together yesterday, when I was lying half asleep in the next
room.”
Mr. Folson was the medical man who had attended Harcourt Lowther after
the scuffle with Francis, and who had brought all his science to bear
for the preservation of the handsome face without which his patient
would have been so small a creature.
“Folson said very little about the damage you got in the row,” the
_attaché_ answered, very coolly; “but he told me you must drop your
liberal consumption of that sort of thing, or you’d find yourself very
speedily in Queer Street.” Mr. Lowther pointed to the smoke-coloured
bottle as he thus addressed himself to his invalid brother. “While you
were teaching that fellow Tredethlyn to drink himself to death, you
ought to have learnt how to keep yourself alive by not drinking,” he
said presently. “However, I don’t want to say anything unpleasant, but
you really must cut your very intimate acquaintance with the
brandy-bottle, if you want to improve your opportunity, now that Mrs.
Tredethlyn is a rich widow. If you don’t look sharp I shall throw over
the Grunderson, and go in against you.”
Harcourt smiled superciliously.
“I am not afraid of _you_, for more reasons than one,” he said. “Maude
is a curious girl. I sometimes fancy my own chance is not quite so good
as it once was. Goethe says that a man wins in his age the prize he
sighs for in his youth. Perhaps, when I am a pottering old fellow of
seventy, I shall have a great fortune and a handsome wife; only the
capability of caring much for either will be gone. How fond we were of
toffee at Harrow! But all the toffee that was ever manufactured in
Doncaster during the Sellenger week wouldn’t give me a ray of pleasure
now. Madame de Maintenon began to enjoy herself when she was eighty;
rather late in the day, wasn’t it? My soul is weary, Roderick; and now
the chance _has_ come, I’m not the man I was. Perhaps, after all, the
simple truth of the matter is that I am suffering from an attack of blue
devils, engendered of solitary confinement in this detestable crib. I’ll
tell you what I’ll do, old fellow. As the ugly scar across my forehead
has dwindled into a romantic-looking badge of bygone prowess, and the
variegated hues of my countenance are rapidly fading into an interesting
pallor, I’ll get you to send me round a hack from Parsons’s, and I’ll
take a spin in the Park; there won’t be many people about at this time
of year, and the fresh air will blow my old self back again, I dare say.
I’ll meet you at the Metropolitan afterwards, if you like,” added
Harcourt, naming an adjacent restaurant at which the brothers had been
wont to dine occasionally.
“No, thanks. I dine at the Grundersons’.”
“_Déjà!_ We go fast, my friend!”
“If your military experience had extended farther than the
superintendence of penitent burglars, you might have known that where
the assailing party is weak, a fortress must be taken quickly, or not at
all. I declared myself to Rosa this morning. She is delighted with the
idea of flourishing at foreign courts in _écrasant_ pink dresses. How I
shall tone her down, poor child! and what a hard time we shall both have
of it before the scent of the market-garden ceases to cling to her
still! I am to speak to papa Grunderson this evening, over his wine. He
consumes the best part of a bottle of old port every night, and finishes
off at a neighbouring tavern with the gin-and-water of his early
manhood. Rosa tells me that he is an indulgent old party, and that I
shall not have any difficulty in bringing him to book.”
“Then you really think of marrying?” asked Harcourt, thoughtfully.
“Really think of marrying? Of course I do. What else should I think of
whereby to improve my fortunes? And Rosa will not be so _very_
disagreeable after a good deal of toning down.”
“I thought perhaps you might have some lingering regard for----that
other person.”
The diplomatist turned upon his brother with a frown.
“I thought I told you that I didn’t care to discuss that subject,” he
said, haughtily. “Drop it, if you please. There are plenty of
disagreeable things in _your_ life, I dare say, that I might remember,
if I wanted to make myself obnoxious. However, as you have been existing
upon a limited supply of oxygen for the last six weeks, I suppose you’re
privileged to be cantankerous. I’ll look in at the stables and send you
the hack; and if I find you here when I come home to dress, I dare say
we shall hit it better. _A bientôt!_”
Harcourt Lowther had his gallop in the Park, and punished the
livery-stable hack rather severely. It was dusk before he went back to
town, and he left the Park by the Prince’s Gate, and rode slowly through
the gorgeous dismality of Stuccoville. He walked his horse down the
street in which Francis Tredethlyn’s household had been established.
Glimmering lights burned feebly in the windows on the second floor, but
the gaslit dining-room was blank and empty.
Looking up at the dimly lighted windows, Harcourt Lowther wondered if
Maude Tredethlyn’s heart, set free all at once from its mercenary
bondage, had fluttered back to the lover of her youth. He was strangely
tormented by conflicting fancies, and found it hard to strike the
balance between his low estimate of woman’s constancy and his very high
opinion of his own merits.
“She loved me once,” he thought, “and my hold upon her ought to be
stronger now than ever it was. I have quires of schoolgirl letters
filled with protestations of eternal constancy and reliance in a bright
future waiting for us somewhere in the cloudy distance of our lives. And
now the happy future is ours, my Maude; you are free and you are rich;
so we can afford to build the castle of our dreams, and live in it very
respectably.”
Riding slowly homeward through the crowded streets, Mr. Lowther found it
very difficult to shut out of his mind the picture of a burning ship,
and the image of the man whom he had called his friend, prominent amidst
a wild night-scene of death and horror.
“I’m glad I had nothing to do with the fellow’s going in that vessel,”
thought Mr. Lowther, as he tried to shake off the uncomfortable feeling
which oppressed him. “_I_ had no hand in his mad freak of bolting off to
Buenos Ayres; so I needn’t worry myself about the business. If he had
lived to get there safely, I dare say he’d have been finished off by
fever or small-pox.”
Nearly a week elapsed before Harcourt Lowther approached the woman who
had once been his plighted wife, and who was now free to renew her
broken vows as speedily as common decency would allow her to accept the
addresses of a second husband. The schemer wanted to be sure of his
triumph. One interview with Maude, one look in her face, would be enough
to tell him whether his hold on her was undiminished, whether his future
happiness was secure. Assured of this, he would be contented to stand
apart until the usages of society would permit him to take his place by
her side as her acknowledged suitor. But he was eager to be quite sure
of his position. A nervous restlessness that was foreign to his
temperament had come upon him since the tidings of the _Kingfisher’s_
destruction had reached his ears; and he could not endure anything like
uncertainty or suspense.
He called at Stuccoville one morning. He was told that Mrs. Tredethlyn
would see no one; but that Miss Desmond was at home, and would receive
him, if he pleased.
He did please; and was ushered into the morning-room, where Julia sat
writing at a little table near the window. There was a door opening from
Mrs. Tredethlyn’s dressing-room into this morning-room; and as Harcourt
entered at one door, a pale wan creature in black appeared at the other.
It was Maude--so changed that a sudden pang shot through the schemer’s
heart as he looked at her; a sudden pang that must have been remorse,
but which gave place immediately to a feeling of jealous anger.
Was the loss of her husband so deep a sorrow that it should change her
like this?
She had seen the visitor, and was drawing back, when he ran to her and
seized her hand.
“Maude!” he cried, passionately, “I must speak to you. Surely you are
not going to treat _me_ like a stranger.”
She tried to take her hand from his, but he held it firmly and drew her
into the room; as he did so, Julia, who had risen on his entrance, went
quietly out at the other door. Maude and Harcourt were alone.
“What can you have to say to me?” asked Mrs. Tredethlyn. “It is cruel of
you to force yourself upon me at such a time as this. I have grief
enough and trouble enough without being tortured by the sight of you.”
Harcourt Lowther looked at her aghast.
“Tortured by the sight of me!” he repeated.
“Yes,” answered Maude, indignantly. “It was your fault that my husband
left me. It was you who planted base suspicions in my mind when there
was no need for suspicion. If I had gone back to the cottage at
Petersham--as I would have done, but for you--I should have discovered
the folly of my jealous fancies--inspired by you--yes, by you alone. For
when I saw Francis and his cousin, my first impulse was to call him by
his name. It was your exclamation that frightened me; it was your manner
that filled me with absurd alarm. Why did you poison my mind against the
best husband a woman ever had? How could you be so base as to repay his
trusting friendship with such malicious treachery?”
“Because I loved you, Mrs. Tredethlyn, and I believed that your husband
had wronged you. Was _I_ likely to be a very lenient judge of his
conduct towards you, when I had loved you so passionately, and had been
jilted by you so cruelly for him? You questioned me, and I spoke. Can
you forget or deny that I spoke reluctantly? You hang your head, Mrs.
Tredethlyn; ah, I see that you remember.”
“Yes,” answered Maude, piteously, as she sank into a chair; “you are
right. I made you speak. It was my own jealous folly from first to last.
If others doubted and suspected, I ought to have trusted him. What a
pitiful return I made him for so much devotion, when I could not even
give him my confidence!” She was silent for some moments, lost in
thought. It was of her husband, and not of the man standing before her,
that she was thinking. Harcourt Lowther could see that.
She looked up at him presently, as if she suddenly remembered his
presence. “Have you anything more to say to me?” she asked, coldly.
“Have I anything more to say! Are you mad, Mrs. Tredethlyn, that you ask
me such a question? I have outraged propriety perhaps in coming to see
you so soon, you will tell me; but a man who has suffered as much as I
have at the hands of the woman he loves is not very likely to be held
back by ceremonial constraints when the hour comes in which he may claim
atonement for the wrong that has been done him. I respect your natural
sorrow for the terrible fate of your husband; but I should despise you
if you were so false-hearted a prude as to affect forgetfulness of what
is due to me.”
Maude looked at him as she had never looked at him before. Wonder,
indignation, disgust--all mingled in the expression of her countenance.
He had woven his network to ensnare a frivolous shallow-hearted girl,
and behold, on the completion of the schemer’s web, a woman arose in the